The Document Foundation has officially launched LibreOffice 25.8, now available for download on Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms.
Performance is one of the standout improvements in this release. Benchmarks show Writer and Calc opening documents up to 30% faster, with smoother scrolling and better memory handling, especially on thin clients and virtual desktops. Users on less powerful machines will likely notice the difference right away.
At the same time, the compatibility with Microsoft Office formats just got better. LibreOffice 25.8 brings more accurate handling of DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX files, reducing the kinds of formatting issues that often frustrate users switching between platforms.
Updates include an overhauled word hyphenation and spacing engine, better font management in Impress, and new Calc functions such as CHOOSECOLS, HSTACK, and TEXTSPLIT, which mirror those available in Excel.
Regarding the new feature, here are the most notable ones:
- Writer introduces finer control over hyphenation rules, better handling of word spacing, and expanded track changes support. A new option also lets users redact images directly from the Auto-Redact tool.
- Calc gains a more flexible Text Import dialog, customizable conditional formatting operators, and a long list of new spreadsheet functions designed for complex data analysis. Performance when working with large spreadsheets, conditional formatting, and charts has also been improved.
- Impress and Draw add support for embedded fonts in PPTX files, easier handling of Master Slides and Pages, and visible page boundaries for better layout control.
- A new application-wide Viewer mode lets users open files in read-only mode, useful for presentations or reviewing documents without the risk of accidental edits.
LibreOffice 25.8 also introduces support for exporting to the PDF 2.0 standard, complete with modern AES-256 encryption and better compatibility with Adobe Reader. Meanwhile, the ScriptForge libraries have been expanded, giving advanced users and developers more tools for automation and custom workflows.
On the accessibility side, improvements include new screen reader support on Windows, better handling of text indentation attributes, and a more responsive interface when assistive technologies are active. Plus, spell-checking and hyphenation tools have been expanded to cover more Indian languages, and existing dictionaries for English, Spanish, Ukrainian, and others have been updated.
It’s also worth noting that the user interface gets a redesigned Welcome/What’s New dialog that makes it easier to pick between LibreOffice’s various UI layouts, while other tweaks simplify toolbars, menus, and navigation.
Lastly, keep in mind that with this version, LibreOffice ends support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, as well as 32-bit x86 Windows builds. It is also the final release to run on macOS 10.15, with future versions requiring macOS 11 or newer.
Visit the official announcement or check out the release notes for more details on the new features and improvements.
LibreOffice 25.8 can be downloaded from the project’s website. DEB and RPM packages are available for Linux users. If you’re using a rolling release distribution, you can expect to see it as an update in your distro’s repositories in the coming days or weeks.
